The Successful Stories

Aloha Everyone!!! I'm back!!!

Another week has passed so let me share something again in this Blog. As an aspiring entrepreneur, aside from looking for opportunities, I am also looking for inspirational people who could help drive my courage to take risks and learn from them even though just through their stories. Their humble beginnings can inspire me and give me the vibes that every hard work you give will always pay off. So now let me share these top 3 Entrepreneurs who brought up their business from scratch and made it big in the business industry.

1. Melanie Perkin

She was the co-founder of the trending app for design tool called "Canva". Perkins came up with the idea for Canva in 2007 when she was just 19. She was teaching design programmes to her peers in university when she realised that most of the programmes were expensive, complex, and inaccessible. She conceptualized a future of design which would be simple, virtual, and collaborative. Perkins started by raising venture capital, however, the process was even more difficult. She found her first investors after over a hundred rejections and numerous futile trips to Silicon Valley. It took over three years for Perkins and her husband and co-founder Cliff Obrecht to acquire the first investment for the company. Canva was finally launched in 2013.

    Canva is one of the most valued female-led startups in the world. The company raised $200 million in cash and declared a $40 billion valuation in September 2021. Forbes recognized Melanie Perkins as one of the “Top Under 30 of the Decade” in 2020. With a net worth of A$3.43 billion, Perkins debuted on The Australian Financial Review Rich List in 2020. She and Obrecht were ranked as the tenth wealthiest Australians by The Australian Financial Review as of May 2021, with a combined net worth of A$7.98 billion. According to a Forbes Report, the Canva founders’ projected net worth as of January 31, 2022, is A$9.21 billion (US$6.5 billion).

2. Sam Walton

    Samuel Moore Walton was one of the founder of one of the biggest retail corporation in the world, the Walmart. For a brief history of his life, he grew up on a farm in Oklahoma. He began what would be a lifelong career in the retail store business in 1940, when he took a job as a sales trainee at a JC Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa. Prior to his first job, Walton graduated from Hickman High School and later the University of Missouri. Walton was enthusiastic about his job, but he was never one of the JC Penney company's most thorough employees. 

  In 1945, with his own money and the money borrowed from his father-in-law, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas, a franchise division of Butler Brothers of Chicago. But due to a conflict with his landlord, he needed to find a new place for his business, in 1950 he opened the Walton's Five & Dime and in 1960 he was proud owner of 15 stores. But then, Walton adopt a new strategy-dramatically cutting prices in hopes of undercutting his competition and making up the difference in price through a higher volume of sales. The practice wasn't exactly new, but at the time, discount stores tended to be small, to be located in cities, and to only discount specialty items. Walton's idea was to build big stores that discounted everything they stocked, and to place them in small towns.

    He was rejected with his proposed strategy idea by the franchised Ben Franklin, so Walton decided to take by himself. He opened his first Wal Mart with the help of his brother and co-founder Bud Walton. Originally called Wal Mart Discount City, they opened their doors in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas -not far from Bentonville. The business clicked and now the biggest retail corporation in whole wide world.

3. Edgar Sia  

    He co-founded today's one of the largest fast food chain specialized in BBQ, the Mang Inasal. At 26 years of age in 2003, he started from scratch the fast-food chain Mang Inasal and grew it from a humble branch in Iloilo City to 338 branches nationwide within the first seven years of operations. It was at this point in October 2010 that Jollibee Foods Corporation acquired 70% of Mang Inasal for p3 Billion Pesos ($68m USD), and in April 2016 he sold the remaining 30% of Mang Inasal to Jollibee for p2 Billion Pesos ($41m USD). Enabling him to cash in a total of p5 Billion pesos ($109m USD) from the Mang Inasal business venture that he started from a simple restaurant.

    As a result of his careful planning, clear visions, thorough business design, and passionate execution, Mang Inasal today continues to grow. Mang Inasal remains to be one of the largest and most loved fast-food chains in the country with over 450 stores nationwide and generates over p12 Billion Pesos in system-wide sales revenue and also consistently showing double-digit same-store sales growth year-on-year. In 2009, Sia founded Injap Land Corporation (now DoubleDragon Properties Corporation), developer of CityMall chain of malls. In 2014, DoubleDragon Properties became a public company. He also listed his own grocer Merrymart Consumer Corp this 2020 in the Philippine Stock Exchange.

    

*Side Comment:)

    As I read their stories, I've come to see some Entrepreneurs' characteristics like being an opportunity seeker, taking a risk, and being wise at all times. I've also come to know that not all people will easily support you they will not take the risk with you so in the end if you really want to push your idea, all you have is yourself with your determination and hope that all will be well. I've also come to realize why business owners really push their children to inherit their business because thinking of all of the hardship they went through just to establish their business is something. well, that's only for me, anyway, this is all for my week's blog see you again on the next one!!! 

For reference, you may just click here!😉

https://etinsights.et-edge.com/melanie-perkins-founder-of-canva-success-story/   

https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/it-took-melanie-perkins-100-rejections-over-3-yrs-some-faith-to-give-life-to-design-platform-canva/articleshow/92845505.cms  

 https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/sam-walton-biography/

 https://stockbytes.net/edgar-sia-ii-success-story/